Before going on the air, Davit Souders mentions thisband from Coffeyville that's been bugging him — in a goodway. They're called Pheb:ate, they've got a fresh debut CDand for the last several weeks the band and its smalllegion of supporters from the Kansas border have been tyingup the phone lines during Souders' late-night local musicradio show, "Home Groan," begging him to play something fromthe new CD.

So the show starts — 11 p.m. sharp, as it does everySunday night on KMYZ 104.5-FM — and pretty soon the phonelines are blinking again. This time, though, one of them isa cellular call. The producer patches it into the studiospeakers.

"Look out the window!" cries a jubilant young womanthrough the satellite static.

We go to the window and eight floors down in the parkinglot is a gaggle of young'uns, waving hysterically andbrandishing an acoustic guitar. For the next half hour, thecrowd grows, and the young woman on hold keeps begging tobe allowed into the studio. At one point, things get alittle loony, with the band's female fans so eager to showtheir support that they show, well, more of themselves thantheir mommas would have appreciated. It's one video cameraaway from becoming "Home Groan Girls Gone Wild."

Souders — a true rock 'n' roll warrior, but a businessmanwho enjoys at least a modicum of control — eventuallyrelents, and the band is ushered upstairs for a quickon-air chat and an impromptu performance in the studio.After the show, the whole group hangs outside and playsguitar, confident their assertiveness has scored them amajor marketing triumph.

"That's as pure as it gets in my book, right there,"Souders says later that night. "I mean, Jim Halsey (localmusic entrepreneur) is always talking about the psychicpayoff musicians get from things like this. Boom — there itis on those faces right there. Because when it comes downto it, it's not really about money and girls and salesfigures, it's about getting played. It's about getting tofeel like the work you've put into something meanssomething, anything, to even one little radio host likeme."

In the nearly six years he's been hosting "Home Groan," aweekly show dedicated to Tulsa-area original music, Soudershas been buttered up by bands hoping to score a spin on hisshow. They know when he's due on the air, and sometimesthey lie in wait in that same parking lot outside thestation, thrusting CDs in his hand and sometimes a pizza ortwo — learning early lessons of salesmanship the hard way.

As America's — and Tulsa's — radio landscape becomes morevanilla, monochromatic and pre-recorded, "Home Groan" hassurvived as a refreshing oasis, largely due to madcapmoments like this one. More importantly, though, is theinfluence the show has maintained — the impact radio airplay(even in the worst possible timeslot, late on a Sundaynight) has on the evolutionary spark of a local andregional artistic scene. Why else would two or three dozenkids from Coffeyville drive an hour in the dark of night toharass an innocent DJ?

Souders, of course, is more than a DJ. He's beenformulating fiendish local concerts as DiabolicalProductions for more than a decade, having workedhand-in-hand for several years at the Cain's Ballroom whenLarry Shaeffer was there, and having owned and operated hisown nightclub, Ikon, in three Tulsa locations.

He's also a musician, once a member of a local bandcalled Lynx and currently singing for a revolving forum oflocal players called D.D.S. He even makes his own kilts,but perhaps that's another story (best told by theaccompanying photo).

His radio career began in the eighth grade in the late'70s, when he was the voice of Tulsa Public Schools lunchmenus on KAKC. For this duty — reading the advance warningsof tomorrow's institutional slop — he created an on-airpersonality called Dr. Psycho Fanatic. Everything you needto know about Souders (other than his obsessions with ElvisPresley and his idol, Alan Freed) likely is summed up inthis fact: to this day, the Dr. Psycho Fanatic gig is stillon his resume.

From 1990 to 1994, Souders hosted the "Teknopolis"electronic music show, which bounced between threedifferent local stations. In '96, he picked up the "HomeGroan" gig, replacing its original host, Admiral Twindrummer-singer Jarrod Gollihare.

He has certainly made the show his own. In particular,he has been instrumental in applying the show's brand tooccasional "Home Groan" "low-dough" concerts featuring localbands as well as two "Home Groan" CD compilations. The formerhave been especially illustrative of the show's success.

"We had a show at Cain's a couple of years ago where wehad about 500 kids," Souders said. "Of course, I emcee a laAlan Freed, and you know I end all the radio shows with mylittle catchphrase: 'I'm not evil, I'm just Diabolical.' SoI get up on stage at this show and say, 'I'm not evil, I'mjust . . .' and the bulk of the crowd shouts, 'Diabolical!'I was blown away."

Souders hopes to one day produce another CD compilation,probably of live performances from those low-dough shows,but the plans to reopen Ikon are in the deep freeze.Meanwhile, Diabolical continues bringing interesting showsto Tulsa. But Souders is clearly in his element behind themicrophone, scratching his head underneath the trademarkbandana and directing a new band into the public arena.

These online "clips" reproduce a self-selection of my journalism (music etc) during the last 20+ years. It's a lotta stuff, but it only scratches the surface. I do not currently possess the time or resources to digitize the whole body of work. These posts are simply a bunch of pretty great days at the office.